FLAC 1.1.4 -8 to TAK extra max 1.0.1

2007-07-13 16:36:55

I just finished conversion of 4826 of 395 CD's using foobar2000 v0.9.4.3. I had them all in FLAC 1.1.4 -8 and occupied 140.881.021.455 Bytes (including tags artist, album, genre, date, tracknumber and replaygain values). FLAC average bitrate was 893 kbps.

Now in TAK 1.0.1 extra max (-e -p4m) the 4826 files occupy 134.156.890.462 Bytes (same tags) with an average bitrate of 850 kbps.

During the conversion fb2k crashed 2 times. Converting again the problematic albums went without a problem so I could not reproduce it (my Intel Core 2 DUO is about 20% overclocked).

FLAC 1.1.4 -8 to TAK extra max 1.0.1

During the conversion fb2k crashed 2 times. Converting again the problematic albums went without a problem so I could not reproduce it (my Intel Core 2 DUO is about 20% overclocked).

Since the conversion worked on the second attempt, I don't think the issue was related to a harddrive issue. I rather guess the CPU suffered stability problems due to overheating while transcoding the FLAC files to TAK at full performance, hence you should either apply some better cooling to it or reset its speed to the default one. It would also be possible that the lack of stability was caused by an insufficient power supply, i.e. raising it manually via the system BIOS might help.

FLAC 1.1.4 -8 to TAK extra max 1.0.1

I just finished conversion of 4826 of 395 CD's using foobar2000 v0.9.4.3. I had them all in FLAC 1.1.4 -8 and occupied 140.881.021.455 Bytes (including tags artist, album, genre, date, tracknumber and replaygain values). FLAC average bitrate was 893 kbps.

Now in TAK 1.0.1 extra max (-e -p4m) the 4826 files occupy 134.156.890.462 Bytes (same tags) with an average bitrate of 850 kbps.

Thanks for the info! I always like to hear when TAK is useful for someone.

During the conversion fb2k crashed 2 times. Converting again the problematic albums went without a problem so I could not reproduce it (my Intel Core 2 DUO is about 20% overclocked).

If your system isn't stable, i would strongly recommend to activate the verify option (-v) on encoding! It will immediately decode any encoded frame and compare the decoded with the original audio data. Since verify doesn't check the file container, there will still be a very small chance for some unrecognized error left.

FLAC 1.1.4 -8 to TAK extra max 1.0.1

Since the conversion worked on the second attempt, I don't think the issue was related to a harddrive issue. I rather guess the CPU suffered stability problems due to overheating while transcoding the FLAC files to TAK at full performance, hence you should either apply some better cooling to it or reset its speed to the default one. It would also be possible that the lack of stability was caused by an insufficient power supply, i.e. raising it manually via the system BIOS might help.

The CPU temperature goes up from 39 ºC to 52 ºC when going from idle to full load. Power supply (Antec), memory (G.Skill) and CPU cooler (Skythe with large airflow) were carefully picked. Overclocking settings are done automatically by Asus but I guess it doesn't regulate the voltages good enough. Some weeks ago I had a sudden pc reset when doing nothing. I guess I have to learn how to manually set everything since I haven't read reports about TAK plugin being a bit unstable. Thx.

FLAC 1.1.4 -8 to TAK extra max 1.0.1

Thanks for the info! I always like to hear when TAK is useful for someone.

I decided to give TAK a chance based on some previous tryings and Soulseek's lossless comparison. The max size reduction is rather surprising still having an acceptable encode and decode speed (for me). I don't care about 1 or 2% less occupied space but going from 893 to 850 kbps is rather something to think about. I forgot to say: all converted music is pop, rock, blues, electronic, disco (no metal, no classical and no heavy).

If your system isn't stable, i would strongly recommend to activate the verify option (-v) on encoding! It will immediately decode any encoded frame and compare the decoded with the original audio data. Since verify doesn't check the file container, there will still be a very small chance for some unrecognized error left.

Thomas

Oh, I missed the verify option, I will activate it.

Thomas I want to send you my thanks for the great codec you gave birth to and the energy you put into its growing up

FLAC 1.1.4 -8 to TAK extra max 1.0.1

I just finished conversion of 4826 of 395 CD's using foobar2000 v0.9.4.3. I had them all in FLAC 1.1.4 -8 and occupied 140.881.021.455 Bytes (including tags artist, album, genre, date, tracknumber and replaygain values). FLAC average bitrate was 893 kbps.

Now in TAK 1.0.1 extra max (-e -p4m) the 4826 files occupy 134.156.890.462 Bytes (same tags) with an average bitrate of 850 kbps.

Interesting data indeed, all the more confirming TAK's potential.

How long did the conversion take approximately?

What made you pick the extra max mode, rather than e.g. the high preset, which (at least according to Synthetic Soul's and Joseph Pohm's stats) would still have compressed to somewhere near 134.5 x 10^9 bytes (853ish kbit/s), but about 3 times as fast?

(Although I would also favour TAK's strongest over its medium settings, as I prefer FLAC -8 over default -5; compression is supposed to be a one-time thing, while decompression should be blazingly fast, which is the case for just about any TAK or FLAC setting. I'm just interested in other people's stance on this.)

FLAC 1.1.4 -8 to TAK extra max 1.0.1

The conversion took totally about 13 hours on my Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2835 MHz. I wanted to do it in 2 nights but as I told in previous post I had two fb2k crashes and only in the morning I could relaunch and continue the conversion. This time includes the fb2k automatic replaygaining by album.

What made you pick the extra max mode, rather than e.g. the high preset, which (at least according to Synthetic Soul's and Joseph Pohm's stats) would still have compressed to somewhere near 134.5 x 10^9 bytes (853ish kbit/s), but about 3 times as fast?

I wanted the highest compression but with a decompression speed as close as posible to FLAC's rate. When sorting Synthetic Soul lossless codec comparison by compression and then looking at the decompression speed column you see the decoding rate going slowly up until TAK extra max which shows a kind of a big jump up (87x). I found the encoding rate acceptable (a bit less than the half of FLAC -8) because you do it only once. Previous play with TAK settings actually made me conclude that TAK extra max has acceptable encoding speed for me. But yes, I doubted about using TAK high max but I wanted to compare with FLAC on a fare base (max compression setting).

I have also tested a few times Optimfrog (high compression) and LA but the low decoding speed, slow seeking and cpu load on playback led me to discard them. Decoding speed is important to me because I transcode regularly to other formats (lame -V5, lame -V3, ogg and acc) so the decode rate should be high enough to not be a very narrow bottleneck, especially now multicore CPU's will be more and more "multi".

I'm happy with FLAC -8 and for now the rest of my music collection will stay in FLAC until TAK gets more mature (more HW/SW support, pipelining, other operating systems, code optimization, etc.) and maybe one day I make the big switch. The potential of TAK is interesting enough to keep "a continuous eye" on TAK.